Chemical Corrosion in the World of Agriculture

It is not a secret that fasteners utilized in agriculture equipment can often be subjected to exceptionally corrosive environments. Corrosion resistant solutions are key to maintaining agriculture equipment but the importance of chemical resistance is many times over looked. Chemical corrosion has a strong impact on farming equipment when liquid nitrogen, an extremely corrosive chemical, makes up 28% and 32% of crop fertilizer. The success rate for servicing tractors and other equipment was greatly reduced due the chemical corrosion of fasteners.

An alternative answer was first explored by John Deere with the adoption of coated fasteners in the agriculture industry. This heavily influenced other OEM’s to follow John Deere’s movement towards coated fasteners as a solution to chemical corrosion. The agriculture market has now accepted coatings as alternatives to zinc electroplatings for some time.

RIE Coatings collaborated closely with coating suppliers and key customers to develop a coatings solution to combat chemical corrosion. Throughout the process RIE Coating and their customers have heavily targeted the JDN 389 specification. RIE4900 base coat and RIE4001 top coat are listed as an approved material on the JDN 499 specification.

One of the key clauses in the JDN 389 specification is resistance to 28% nitrogen. An improved process and coating systems now provides even greater resistance to 28% and 32% nitrogen. This engineering process successfully created a superior coating that offers chemical resistance against elements that contain up to 32% of nitrogen.

The life of costly agriculture equipment can be prolonged and production efficiencies can be greatly improved with our coatings. The ease of installation versus zinc electroplating since the integrated lubricants or friction modifiers in the top provide consistent torque and tension.